If you’re an event organizer or you’re selling merch like band tshirts online and IRL, you may be struggling to find a simple solution that allows you to take orders online but also in real life. Most point of sale solutions are pricey, and if you’re only occasionally selling offline, it can be expensive to shell out hundreds of dollars for a point of sale, or to spend time creating a separate payment processing solution. Fortunately, with a Google Form, the Payable Add On and a simple QR code creator like Bit.ly, your Google Form can turn into a checkout that’s easy for customers to use straight from their phones whether you’re standing in front of them or are miles away.
Start by creating a Google Form that collects order information and use the Payable Add-On in order to collect payments all in the same place. If you’re planning to sell products both online and IRL, make sure you have a question that has options for no shipping (for in real life purchases) or shipping charges (for online orders).
For event signups and day-of registration or selling merch IRL, you can create a QR code link to the Form using Bit.ly, a free service that lets you create short custom URLs and a QR code that customers can scan to be taken directly to the Form.
Print out the QR code with any other relevant information and display it at your booth—you can create a nice graphic with information about how much everything costs and how to scan and fill out the Form using Canva, a free graphic design service.
Now, people without cash can easily pay from their phones if you don’t have the ability to take credit cards at your booth. And because they’re scanning the QR code from their phone, they’re never sharing their credit card information with you and you’re not running their credit card. They’re essentially making an online purchase right in front of you. Once they’ve paid, they can show you the receipt on their phone and you can hand them their bib number, tshirt or taco platter!
This is also a great way to sell IRL because multiple people can be checking out at the same time by scanning the code and filling out the Form, making it easy if your event registration has a lot of information required.
Payable even has a free Template for Team Merch Sales to get you started. Once you’ve make your form, head to Google Forms and get the Payable Add-On! And Payable only makes money if you do. There are no subscription fees required. Simply connect to your payment processor (like Stripe, Square or Paypal) and start bringing in cash. You can even add a small credit card surcharge to cover payment processing fees (usually between 2-4 percent depending on your payment processor), and incorporate a delivery/shipping fee if needed.